


The Wolf's Bridegroom

by AlysanneBlackwood



Series: Fairy-Tales [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Animal Grooms, Fairy Tale Retellings, First Time, Happy Birthday Edward Little, Happy Ending, I don't know if you would appreciate this but I did my best, M/M, Thank You Angela Carter, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21800161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlysanneBlackwood/pseuds/AlysanneBlackwood
Summary: Merely the story of a wedding, and what followed.(Happy birthday, Lt Little.)
Relationships: Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Series: Fairy-Tales [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1421710
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	The Wolf's Bridegroom

**Author's Note:**

> I owe two debts in the writing of this story. The first is to Angela Carter, as I based this on two of her stories ('The Tiger's Bride' and 'The Company of Wolves') in her fantastic 1979 anthology 'The Bloody Chamber', as well as the 1984 film adaptation of 'The Company of Wolves', which she co-wrote with Neil Jordan. The second is to Charles Perrault, for writing 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge' (the earliest written version of 'Little Red Riding Hood') down in 1697.

In autumn the dark fell earlier and earlier, casting the crook-branched trees in strange black designs against the sky, carving into crystalline shards the light from the stars and moon. By day the sky hung low and grey but for the occasional ray of weak, pale sunlight peeking frightfully from behind the clouds. It was, said the men of the village, looking to be a hard winter, as all the winters in living memory had been. Perhaps once upon a time the winter wood had been simple to traverse, full of sleeping, easy prey, but that prey now belonged to the wolves. In summer they kept to themselves in some part of the woods no one dared to enter, but come winter they roamed the entire length of the forest, lean and hungry, their howls creating a foreboding music that ended only when the snow began to melt every April. From the time they were old enough to understand, every child was taught to preserve all they could in the fall, for there would be no hunting at all when the days shortened.

Only the man who lived in the woods had no fear of the wolves, or so it was said. He came into the village once a month until October to sell his firewood and furs, and disappeared altogether in the winter. ‘He should come when we need him most,’ grumbled one man over his drink on a cold night. ‘How can he?’ another asked. ‘Would you have a wolf come out of the forest and eat us all up?’ ‘No, the snows are deep this time of year,’ said a third. ‘He is as trapped as we.’ Yet it was the second man’s worry that was most common among the people; he was no ordinary man at all, they believed, but a wolf who turned to a man when he pleased, or a man who turned to a wolf when the moon was full. And when the moon turned full, the howling did always seem a little louder than before.

But, wolf or man, the man who lived in the woods was lonely, and so it was that, quite unexpectedly, he came out of the forest in mid-November and went from house to house, introducing himself to all the young men and women of marriageable age. Or rather, he tried to, as many doors were shut in his face with shouts of ‘Go away!’ and ‘We’ll not be fooled into becoming your supper!’ One family, however, greeted him warmly. Simon and Sarah Little were sensible folk, and had never believed the stories that Mr Tozer was some sort of inhuman creature at any time. Their son, they told him, was nearly nineteen, and a lonesome lad with no friends save for his books and the fish and frogs who lived in the little stream that ran behind the house. The prospect of marriage might do his spirit good. They called him out from his bedroom, introduced the two, and left them alone to talk. 

They were respectful, and did not eavesdrop, but even so the conversation must have gone very well, for Mr Tozer came back the next day and the day after. At the end of a fortnight of visits he asked if he might propose, and, when given their blessing, did so and was met with a yes. The boy had come to like his suitor, and thought that this might be the best opportunity he would ever have, as he was not given to seeking out husbands or wives himself. 

So it was that nineteen years to the day he was born, on the fourteenth of December, that Edward Little wed Solomon Tozer in the small parish by a priest who never quite looked Solomon in the eye. After they exchanged their good-byes with Sarah and Simon, the newlyweds left by way of a cart for the woods.

‘You’ve damned the poor boy,’ said the blacksmith, who had stopped his work to watch the departure. ‘A man cannot lie with an animal. It’s unholy.’

‘I don’t want to hear another word about my good-son being an animal,’ Sarah told him tartly, ‘until you can prove to me he is one. Have you the nerve to do so?’ The blacksmith blanched, murmured an apology, and returned to his forge.

The cart, drawn by a small brown mare, rattled on down the snow-covered path deeper and deeper until Edward could not tell the hour, for the trees seemed to thicken and create a canopy of branches which obscured the sky entirely. After a time the path disappeared and though they rolled over many a tree-root, the mare kept her pace, stepping lightly over each obstacle. At last they came to a small patch of land where the trees cleared, and in the middle of the clearing stood a little stone house with a tall, peaked roof. A low wooden fence was all the protection it had, and Edward blinked disbelievingly. ‘Aren’t you afraid of something breaking that down?’

‘Wolves, you mean?’ Solomon asked, gently tugging on the reins to stop the mare. ‘I know how to keep them away.’ He climbed down from the cart and Edward followed, waiting by the door whilst Solomon led both mare and cart to a stall in the corner of the yard. This done, he unlocked the door and they both went inside. ‘It’s no estate,’ he said, ‘but I fixed it up some for us.’

The house was one large room: a bed in one corner, a deep fireplace in which a pot hung and a chimney in the northern wall, a table set for two in the center, and shelves mounted to the wall at eye level, all of which were covered with jars and various utensils; one bore a lonesome rifle. At the eastern wall, under the window, there was a rack bearing a skin; when Edward peered closer, he could see it was a rabbit. A chest stood at the foot of the bed -- ‘for our clothing,’ Solomon explained when he noticed Edward looking at it -- and a clock ticked softly away above the fireplace. Edward made himself busy putting his clothes away in said chest, watching Solomon add more wood to the fireplace and strike a match. He had always preferred silence to anything else, but now it weighed down on him heavily; he felt he was meant to speak, but he did not know what of. After a moment, he thought of something, and decided that it was not too banal to be asked.

‘How do you keep the wolves away?’

‘You let them know you’re not afraid. You look a wolf in the eye and it tells him that you’re not to be fooled with. You’re as worthy a foe as any one of his fellow creatures.’

‘Won’t he try and fight you, then?’

‘Perhaps,’ Solomon said, ‘but they have never tried with me.’ The silence fell again, lasting until he asked ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Yes,’ Edward replied, frustrated at his inability to keep a conversation. It had not been so hard the past two weeks, but marriage had stopped his tongue. There were expectations in this new state, and he felt he did not know them at all. What did one talk of on their wedding day, if they did not want to talk only of love? And the night must be coming on, and though Edward did know perfectly well what was meant to happen on one’s wedding night, he was not sure how he felt about it. He was not quite nervous or frightened -- he knew how that felt, and this was not that -- but he was not anticipating it with eagerness, or with a grim resignation, as people in stories sometimes did when they were made to marry cruel kings and queens. It was, he concluded, some kind of absence of feeling, which made him all the more frustrated. What kind of person had no feelings, no worries, no hopes or wishes at all about their wedding night?

‘You said you’ve hunted?’ Solomon asked over their supper. Edward nodded.

‘In the spring and summer. We never hunt in winter.’

‘You don’t mind coming with me tomorrow? It’s easier in the winter anyway -- there’s less stalking to be done, since most everything’s asleep.’

‘Of course I don’t.’ And silence fell once more, broken only by the sound of spoons scraping the last of the stew from the bowls. After they had washed and stored away the dishes (on one of the shelves; there was not a single cupboard in the entire house, Edward noted), Solomon threw another log on the fire and lit the lamp on the bedside table. The silence seemed thicker and heavier than ever. At last Edward could stand it no longer and he burst out with the question. ‘Are we going to…?’

Solomon laughed, but to Edward’s relief it was good-natured rather than mocking. ‘If you were so impatient, you could have asked me the minute we walked in. I would have asked myself but you’ve been so quiet that I thought you were frightened.’

‘I’m not.’ Edward sighed, letting his shoulders drop as though a great weight had been lifted from them. ‘I don’t know how I feel about it.’

‘Perhaps you won’t know until you try,’ Solomon said. ‘Have you ever done this before?’

‘No.’ This was no source of shame for him -- the village was small, and he had never found anyone in it with whom he wished to sleep, although he had sometimes dreamt of an unknown person creeping into his bed and pleasuring him. 

Solomon rose and walked over to where Edward stood by the bed. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he said, gazing down with eyes wide and earnest. Edward swallowed and thought.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said after a moment. ‘I want to see you.’ Solomon said nothing but removed first his braces and shirt, and then his trousers and underclothes until he stood before Edward in nothing at all. Edward sat down on the bed to study him: the broad shoulders and the muscles visible underneath the skin. Relief and desire welled up in him, and he nearly laughed at himself. What had he expected underneath the clothes -- a monstrous beast, as if in a story? They were not two inches apart and Edward reached for him, taking Solomon’s face in his hands and standing to kiss him. It was a much longer and deeper kiss than the one they had exchanged in the parish, and in the course of it Solomon began to pull at Edward’s shirt; they broke apart only for him to undress, and then down they went together into the mattress. 

Solomon’s kisses were hard, sucking things, his teeth nearly closing upon flesh, and Edward, whose dream-lovers had never been quite so fervent, was surprised to find himself leaning into them. Little moaning sounds rang in his ears, and he realised it was he who was making them as something clattered and Solomon raised his head, a small crock clutched in his right hand. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked breathlessly, and Edward saw that his eyes had turned dark as the night outside the window. He nodded, and Solomon brought the crock closer. ‘I know you said this is your first,’ he said, ‘but have you ever…?’ His eyes darted from side to side as he tried to think of a way to phrase the question. Edward grasped his meaning nonetheless.

‘Once,’ he said, recalling an afternoon three months ago when his parents had gone to market the next town over and left him alone to protect the house. He had bathed two of his fingers in what must have been enough oil to drown in before sliding them inside himself in an attempt to live what he had once dreamt of. His arm had grown tired quickly and he had withdrawn it, concluding that it was best when someone else was doing it for you. ‘I didn’t care for it as much as I hoped I would.’

‘I’ll be as careful as I can,’ Solomon promised, dipping two fingers in the crock and setting it aside after he finished with it. ‘Are you ready?’ Edward nodded, and groaned when he felt the first finger, for in spite of Solomon’s slow pace, it did still burn. Solomon saw his face and grimaced himself. ‘I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop?’

‘No! Go on,’ Edward hissed, and Solomon obliged, adding the second finger after a short time. Another half-moment passed and he thrust them deeper, sending a shock up Edward’s spine that made him cry out wordlessly and raise his hips from the bed for more. Solomon smiled and withdrew his hand; Edward looked up at him, barely breathing, aching terribly. ‘Yes, now,’ he heard himself say, ‘yes, I’m ready--’

Again the burning pain, worse than before, mingled with an unexpectedly soft, gentle kiss. Solomon was smoothing his hair back, calling him _my love_ and a hundred other endearments mouthed against his ear. Tears sprang to Edward’s eyes, his throat closed up and he could not say anything at all, only kiss him again and again until the pain began to recede to be replaced by a pleasure that built gradually until he could feel it pulsing beneath every inch of his skin. He held Solomon closer still; arched upwards into him until they were wrapped around each other in an embrace so tight they could both feel each other’s heartbeats quickening. 

There was a groan and Solomon shuddered against Edward as he finished; the force of it brought Edward to his own climax and he was pressing his fingers into Solomon’s back, gasping down air as he stopped trembling. They stared at each other and suddenly burst out laughing, a release of both relief and joy, and Solomon pulled himself from Edward’s arms only to hold him in his own once he lay beside him. ‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked, leaning over and searching Edward’s face for any sign of discomfort.

‘A little at first,’ Edward admitted, seeing no use in lying, ‘but I don’t know if you could have helped that.’ He laughed again and kissed Solomon’s forehead. ‘I could have had far worse luck than you.’ The fire burned ever lower; Solomon reached down blindly and tugged at the blankets until they were both covered, and made drowsy by the blackness outside and their exertions, they slept.

***

Morning dawned freezing in the little house, for the fire had burnt all the way down. Solomon was the first to rise, dressing and starting a new one as Edward began to stir. ‘Do we need anything?’ he asked, sliding out of bed before he gave in to the urge to fall back asleep.

‘There’s a well not far to the east. You might have to break the ice but it should be filled up.’ Edward nodded, dressed, found his coat, and took the pail from its place by the fire before walking out the door into the day. The trees were a little less thick here, and he could see patches of sky, the clouds high and pale grey. Perhaps they would see the sun today, he thought, and set off. A well in the middle of the woods, with only one person to use it until now. How strange. He remembered a story the apothecary’s son had told in the schoolyard years ago, about how the woods had once been a bustling town like any other, until the wolves overran it and trees grew, fed by the blood that ran into the earth. He had dismissed it as a tale for small children, but even so it would not leave his mind, along with another story he knew about a poor unsuspecting wolf who came up from her world into the human one in a well, and was promptly shot on sight. A priest found her shivering and afraid, then only a girl, and bound her wound, promising her that it would heal in time. And it did heal, and she returned to the world from whence she came by lowering herself in the well.

Edward rubbed his eyes. Wolves in towns and wells; what _was_ he going on about? He wished he had thought to bring a knife, or asked to take the rifle, even though he remembered Solomon’s words about looking a wolf right in the eyes. He was not sure he would be able to do that before it pounced and tore his throat out.

But he reached the well without seeing a single animal save for a squirrel who jumped from tree to tree, running alongside him curiously for a while until it grew tired and turned back towards home. It was indeed frozen, and when he broke the ice it was fuller than any well in wintertime he had ever seen. Then again, it had snowed all last week.

By the time he arrived home (for the house in the woods was home now, and would always be), the fire had warmed it considerably, and Solomon sat in front of it loading the rifle. ‘You’ve got your own, haven’t you?’

‘Right.’ Edward set down the pail by the fire, for there were still a few stubborn pieces of ice swimming in the water. They ate in a silence that was now companionable, no longer weighted by unspoken, awkward questions, and then it was out into the cold once more, rifles in hand. 

After two miles and a rabbit that was too quick for both of them, Solomon raised his head. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Something’s crying.’ Edward listened. From far off came the high, keening strains of an injured animal. ‘Must be one of my traps. Come on.’ They went on, taking care to step over stones and roots and branches, until they found the source: a midwinter-thin, half-grown wolf, its paw caught between the trap’s teeth. In front of him, Edward heard Solomon let out a horrified sound. He watched, aghast, as Solomon knelt in the snow, looking the wolf straight in the eye. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he murmured to the wailing wolf. ‘I’m going to get you out of there. Help me,’ he added to Edward. ‘This one doesn’t let go easily.’ Still gaping, thinking that perhaps he had entered a world where down was up and right was left, Edward obliged, helping him to pry the trap apart so the wolf could remove its bleeding paw. Solomon pulled a scrap of cloth from his pocket and bound the wound. ‘Can you walk on it?’ he asked, and the wolf stood shakily before limping off. Edward blinked twice as it left, trying to make sense of what had happened. Finally, he found words.

‘It understood you,’ he said slowly, and felt horribly stupid for being so obvious. ‘And you didn’t kill it.’

‘I don’t kill the wolves,’ Solomon said. ‘The wood’s theirs as much as ours. And they’re not as unthinking as people say they are. They understand what we mean, if we take the time to help them.’

They walked another mile, which yielded another, slower rabbit who had been caught in a trap (this one Solomon did not hesitate to put of its misery) and a quail which Edward brought down from a tree branch. He could not help but keep recalling the sound Solomon had made when they had found the wolf: a little cry, almost a sob, nearly the same as the wolf’s own noise. There had been more than sympathy in it, as if he knew how much pain the wolf was in because he too had once been caught in such a way. He shook his head as they turned back in the direction of home. Wolves in towns, wolves in wells, and now wolves in traps. What was next? Wolves in their house? Dear God, he prayed, don’t let that last one come true.

But all thoughts of wolves soon vanished from his mind as the days passed, each one darker than before, and they kept themselves busy with work by day and lovemaking by night. One morning Edward woke first and was surprised to see the sun shining through the window; when he looked out of it, he could see that the sky was an eye-achingly, perfectly clear blue. He dressed and started a fire and still Solomon slept, until Edward had to tug on his shoulder to wake him up. ‘Sol? Are you alright?’

‘What?’ Solomon opened an eye. ‘I’m fine -- _Jesus Christ,’_ he groaned, shielding his eyes as he sat up. ‘I don’t remember the last time it was this bright.’

‘You’re not ill? You’ve been sleeping sound as a bear.’

‘I don’t feel ill.’ When Solomon spoke his teeth caught the sunlight, and when they flashed Edward thought they looked strangely pointed. A trick of the light, he reassured himself, and they continued in their now-usual way. Night came on quickly and when the clock struck five it was pitch-dark outside. The moon had not yet risen when Solomon set down his mending. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

‘In this weather?’ Despite the sun, it had been cold even for December all day, and now that the sun had set, it would be colder still. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’ Solomon threw on his jumper, coat, and hat and left, taking nothing to defend himself with. Edward tried to concentrate on his own work, but curiosity made him put on his own coat and hat and leave the house, taking a lantern as he did not yet know the woods well enough to walk them in the dark. Holding it aloft in gloved hand, he found the footprints and walked in their wake, weaving through trees that sometimes grew so closer together he could barely step through. Not far off, a wolf howled, and then more joined in. Edward shivered, only partially from the cold. Like Solomon he had gone without rifle or knife, and fear suddenly gripped him, twice as cold as the night air. He had not been so afraid during the hunt, but that wolf had been injured and only recently a cub; it had posed no threat at all. The wolves whose howling grew louder as he walked onwards would be full-grown, and hungry besides. What if he could only look one of them in the eye and another rushed forth, or worse, if he could not look at them at all and they each and every one attacked him? Nevertheless he pressed on, driven by an ever-stronger desire to know where Solomon had gone. All day he had seemed strangely absent; Edward had had to call his name several times to get his attention. If he was truly ill, as Edward suspected he might be, he should not be out here at all. 

The moon had now risen full and fat, a sleeping white rabbit curled in on itself. In its light he saw a human figure hunched against a tree and he hurried to it. ‘Sol? Love? Are you sure you’re--’

Solomon’s eye twitched in his direction, and the question died away on Edward’s lips. This was no trick of the light. His eye had turned a dark, golden yellow, furious from pain. It widened when it saw Edward, and Solomon spoke as if even to open his mouth was great effort. _‘Go,’_ he cried, _‘get back--’_ Edward drew back from him but did not leave; he stayed, his heart aching with sympathy. This, he knew, was pain he could not even hope to soothe. Solomon tore at the tree-bark as his fingers lengthened, becoming terrible, elongated things that were not quite fingers but not yet claws. Edward waited for hair to burst forth and overtake the layers of clothing, for his husband’s face to stretch grotesquely into a snout, but rather it seemed that the skin began to peel away, more of it than could be possible in any man. A wet black nose came into sight and from Solomon’s body stepped a large wolf, his grey fur streaked silver by moonlight. Edward bit his tongue, holding back a scream. Had he ever been wed to a being who was truly a man at any time at all, or had he shared the bed of a murdering, shape-shifting demon?

 _It’s me._ Solomon’s voice, deeper than before, rumbled through him. _Don’t worry. I’ll turn back when the moon begins to wane, and you’ll see me as you have. Why did you follow?_ He padded over, his eyes curious and warm, and laid his enormous head in Edward’s lap. Edward had never known a wolf to look so kind, and he cautiously began to stroke the fur.

‘I thought you might be ill, or mad,’ he said. ‘I wanted to find you. Why didn’t you tell me?’

_I thought to, after more time. I didn’t want to frighten you right off._

Edward considered this. He was not sure if he would have been frightened right away. A wild wolf was one thing, and a man who became a wolf was quite another. ‘You wouldn’t have scared me off.’

 _I’m sorry, then._ Solomon seemed to heave a sigh, and a howl sounded closer than ever before, almost right by Edward’s ear. _Will you return to the house? I must hunt with my brothers._ Edward began to nod, and then an idea came to him, an idea that was both terrifying and thrilling but too much not to ask. 

‘Turn me.’

 _What?_ Solomon lifted his head. _Turn you?_

‘We are married, are we not? I only want to share this with you.’

_I am willing, but are you sure of it?_

‘Yes.’ It was, somehow, the easiest decision he had ever made. ‘I am.’

_Then take off your clothes._

And though it was cold as Hell, he did: boots and coat and hat and everything underneath, until he crouched in the snow goose-fleshed and naked as the wolf-girl in the well. The howling drew still closer, almost at his ear. They will bite me, he thought, they will bite me and my blood will run into the earth and come spring there will be another tree here. He listened to the cacophony which now sang tunefully to his ears -- they are calling to each other, he realised -- and waited for the sharp teeth to sink into him.

But none came. Instead a tongue, wet and warm, ran up his shivering body, and he laughed, for it was not painful or rough at all but softer than wool. Again and again Solomon licked him, layers upon layers of skin falling away, until Edward’s eyesight sharpened and he could see far clearer than he had been able to before. 

The lantern lay abandoned and burnt out besides a root. Edward stepped towards Solomon, the snow crunching under his paws, and as the moon climbed higher and the stars shone their light down between the trees, they first walked and then broke into a joyful run to join the rest of the pack in their serenades.

_‘Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.’_

\-- ‘The Company of Wolves’, from _The Bloody Chamber_ by Angela Carter

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I did not think of the story of the wolf-girl in the well. That is from the film 'The Company of Wolves'.  
> 2\. The ending is taken from both 'The Company of Wolves' and 'The Tiger's Bride'.  
> 3\. Perhaps the sex is a bit idealized. But I couldn't give the man bad sex for his two-hundred-and-eighth birthday, now could I?


End file.
